Hand in hand with these efforts to guard against the ascendency
of capital went the endeavours to bring back agriculture to the path
which was most advantageous for the commonwealth. For this purpose
the improvement of the administration of justice and of police
was very essential. While hitherto nobody in Italy had been sure
of his life and of his moveable or immoveable property, while Roman
condottieri for instance, at the intervals when their gangs
were not helping to manage the politics of the capital,
applied themselves to robbery in the forests of Etruria or rounded off
the country estates of their paymasters by fresh acquisitions,
this sort of club-law was now at an end; and in particular
the agricultural population of all classes must have felt
the beneficial effects of the change.

The plans of Caesar
for great works also, which were not at all limited to the capital,
were intended to tell in this respect; the construction,
for instance, of a convenient high-road from Rome through
the passesof the Apennines to the Adriatic was designed to stimulate
the internal traffic of Italy, and the lowering the level
of the Fucine lake to benefit the Marsian farmers. But Caesar
also sought by more direct measures to influence the state
of Italian husbandry. The Italian graziers were required
to take at least a third of their herdsmen from freeborn adults,
whereby brigandage was checked and at the same time a source of gain
was opened to the free proletariate.